Track 8: Festive fic
Welcome to episode eight of the Mixtape Book Club Podcast!

Do you love Supernatural? Are you a fan of Dean and Castiel, and their relationship? Do you enjoy reading Destiel fanfiction? This is the podcast for you!
In this episode, the Holidays are just around the corner. Ellen and MalMuses would like to recommend some fluffy festive fic to you this week! We review three fics: Christmas In July by followyourenergy, The Bad Santa Clause by various authors, and Snow Place Like Home (But My Home Is With You) by almaasi.
You can find our Mixtape Bookclub Ao3 collection here, containing the stories we’ve discussed on the podcast so far.
A warning: Adult themes are mentioned in this podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Featured fics
Christmas in July by followyourenergy
Published 2019, 29k words, rated E
When Dean Winchester follows a service dog who won’t leave him alone, he finds Cas Novak, passed out in a stairwell with a Christmas tree on top of him.
A Christmas tree? In July? Who does that?
Turns out that Cas does that. And once he gets to know the snarky, independent, handsome man, Dean can’t help but fall for him.
A story about being seen.
The Bad Santa Clause by Castielslostwings, jscribbles, MalMuses, pingnova, and sobsicles
Published in 2019, 74k words, rated E.
A quiet pre-Christmas hunt goes horribly wrong for the Winchesters, Castiel, and Jack when Dean accidentally murders Santa Claus.
Ho ho ho, bitches.
A seasonal canon collab loosely based on The Santa Clause.
Snow Place Like Home (But My Home Is With You) by almaasi
Published 2015, 48k words, rated E
It’s Christmas Eve, and Dean, Sam and Castiel are snowed into a small town with a big festive spirit. They splurge on a fancy room in a B&B – hey, they deserve a treat. There’s a tiny plastic tree and a working TV, so they could perhaps overlook the lack of hot water and Dean having to bunk with Sam. Sleeping arrangements soon reach a happier equilibrium: Dean’s just cuddling Cas to keep him warm, he swears – the tingly feeling means nothing! Christmas Day arrives, and Cas still doesn’t have a gift for Dean. Dean doesn’t know what to give Cas, either. Sam has a few ideas, but will the other two truly understand what he means?
Other links
- SPN Quarantine Zine is now available – proceeds going to Direct Relief
- Destiel Fan Favourites Survey
Other festive fics mentioned:
- Destiel Lifemark Bang fic collection
- All I Want For Christmas is You by Andimeantittosting (3176, G) – canon fix-it, found family Christmas at the bunker
- New Holiday by MandalaRose (6258, T) – canon fix-it, found family Christmas at the bunker
- One Cold Night by xylodemon (16,627, E)
- Welcome All Winchesters by almaasi (60,237, E)
- White Winter Hymnal by Pennstram (1009, T)
- It Takes a Village by MarmeLady_Orange (35,490, M)
- Christmas Don’t End in Blood by various (38,545, T)
- You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out by Desirae (1692, E)
- Holidate by Kitmistry (34,917, T)
- Home For Christmas by the_communist_unicorn (wip, E)
- Holiday Love by Castielslostwings (31,585, E)
- Christmas Treats and Angel Heats by MalMuses (19,968, E)
- My Christmas Valentine by CBFirestarter and EllenofOz (9756, T)
Is your favourite not in this list? Please let us know, we’d love to hear from you!
Our intro music is “Angel with a Shotgun” by The Cab, arranged by Ellen 🙂
I love your podcast so much! I really appreciate going to the website to check out the story links. Thanks so much for doing this. I look forward to the next cast.
One little thing, I noticed that on the Festive Fic cast there was a deep background rumble when Mal (I think) spoke. It didn’t happen on both of you. I work with a documentary class at a university, and I know that sometimes if that’s all the audio you have you can’t really do anything but clean it up as best as you can and keep it. But wanted to say that I never noticed this problem on any other episodes, so whatever happened different this ep (recording outside?) you may want to go back to your previous set up.
Also, I’d love if you could introduce yourselves at the beginning at each podcast so I could remember whose voice belongs to who.
Again, I LOVE YOUR PODCAST! Content is fab.
Thank you so much!! Yes, we did notice the rumbles in the latest ep… I also had noises on my end due to a celing fan :-/ We’re gonna check into it for our next recording, so hopefully the quality will be a little better. Thanks for letting us know 🙂
And for future reference, I’m the Aussie, and Mal is the British-American-International 😉
Squeeee! You put one of my stories on the list!
Of course! 🙂
Your podcasti is fantastic!!!
I’m playing catch-up at the moment and I’ve only just gotten to this ep, and I love every episode to pieces so far. Thank you! <3
Since you mentioned above that it was ok to do so, I'd like to rec this Christmas story: I Don't Want a Lot for Solstice by lunarriviera https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831222
It's a little old, it was written in 2014 and it's an AU in which both Sam and Dean are college students and Dean goes to visit his brother in Palo Alto for Christmas, thus meeting his housemates (Charlie and Kevin, YAY!!!!) and his live-in landlord (and comparative literature PhD candidate) Castiel.
I love this story, from the first to the last word
Hope you'll both like it too 🙂
cheers
Claudia
Thanks so much for the rec! Glad you’re enjoying the podcast so far 😊❤️